


two for tragedy

by LocketShoru



Series: Aeternum -Iridescence- [5]
Category: Saint Seiya, 聖闘士星矢: 冥王神話 | Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Anthropomorphic, Gen, Mild Action, Survival, it's an implied past relationship, mild violence, no details or anything, sisy/aspros is also barely there, the oc has a very small part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocketShoru/pseuds/LocketShoru
Summary: [Aeternum V] Violate and Mavros are a pair of mercenaries just trying to do their job. That job does, however, entail finding survivors, fending off ravagers, and taking care to toe the moral line of what's morally acceptable to do. This time, they get lucky. Or maybe not.
Relationships: Implied Sagittarius Sisyphus/Gemini Aspros
Series: Aeternum -Iridescence- [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596289
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	two for tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> A note on why Aspros is referred to as Mavros: there's an in-universe reason for that. It'll come up later.  
> Also, as for Mine Junior: yes, she's named after her mother, no, I didn't feel like coming up with a proper OC. She isn't starring that much, if it helps. Generic Baby.
> 
> So we're finally inching into an actual plot, which I uh. I know I need one but I absolutely have no idea what it is. I know how this ends, I know the two turning points that get me there. Everything else, I have no idea. So I'm gonna go whip a spreadsheet up into shape and figure it out.  
> This unfortunately does mean that I might not be writing another Aeternum for a bit while I fight with it. The big problem with Aeternum is that I have so many issues writing this somewhere that isn't at uni, and obviously due to COVID that's not going to be happening anything soon. I'll keep trying, but it probably won't be as frequent? So yeah. I'll be focusing more on IKM, and if I get a lucky streak with Aeternum, I'll drop everything to write it. We'll see.

She rode onward. Against everything else, against this hellish world, she rode onward. No matter the days being marked by the howling of the beasts below her or the nights filled with smoke and trying to sleep with a gas mask over her face, she rode onward. This time, though, her mount was no longer a dirtbike, scavenged and spot-welded back together over and over until it was nothing but scrap. 

The Scorpion clan of ravagers had reduced both the Garuda and Aries clans to virtually nothing overnight. A few civilian survivors - barely five - had confirmed that both of their leaders had died in the fighting, while Kardia - damned be that man, damn him to hell - had sat upon his throne of a driver’s seat and _laughed_.

At least they’d been able to get some medical supplies over in time. It was better than nothing. And now to ride onward, with the scavenged remains of an Aries hellbeast below her. She was pretty sure it was a modded ATV, with the way its tires could pull up and vanish and it would extend several legs from its body, climbing over terrain that wheels couldn’t handle. Better than the dirtbike, anyhow. She was getting tired of having to carry it over terrain it just didn’t handle.

The Aries mount had been more than capable of carrying far more on it than the dirtbike. It wasn’t like they were going to be able to make a road, anyway. Roads were dangerous, even if it meant supplies might travel faster. If supplies could travel fast, ravagers could travel faster, and worse was what could overtake them on the road.

No, better to be here, atop the ruins, driving a mount so covered in grease it no longer had an emblem on its flank that she might be unrecognizable. Better to be diving into the metal, one and two and four layers down before rising to the dangerous surface again, riding what little pathways existed.

“Violate, incoming,” called a staticky, masculine voice from the speaker in the side of her gas mask. She’d gotten lucky. Walkie-talkies were easily modded if you knew the right people, and the right people - and those they took mercy on - were the only ones who had lived this long. She pressed a gloved finger to the side of the mask.

“Roger that. What are we looking at? I don’t have visual on anything.” The horizon, though foggy and dangerous, didn’t seem to have anything moving on it but them. She glanced to her side, where about fifteen feet away was her partner, on a similar mount and loaded down with as much gear as she had.

He pointed. Sure enough, there was a faint shake from the ruined building, like it was temped to collapse, or if something might be rattling from under it. She veered away from it, climbing on top what might’ve been an overpass, once. All concrete and asphalt and broken metal rods. From her vantage point, they’d be able to see what it was and keep away from it, or rush down to help.

Her partner climbed up beside her, the legs of his mount pumping with hydraulic force. It knelt beside her, its rider crouched on top of it, eyeing the rattling. Best to watch and wait and not be seen. She shifted her position, settling into a cross-legged seat. 

“What do you think it could be?” she asked darkly. He shrugged, the motion near impossible to see under his gear - mask and goggles and scarf and two jackets.

“Could be damn well anything,” he answered, his voice still full of static. “Last thing I saw in this area was Garuda, and they went pretty damn kaboom.” He made the flaring gesture to go with it, the sleeves of his jacket shifting with the spines she knew were underneath. He was lucky enough to be a dragon, not so lucky that he didn’t have wings. With a proper gas mask and wings, he might have been able to escape.

Unfortunately, there was no such luck for either one of them. She had woken up with hard scales and tufts of fur and heavy horns and hooves like a damn satyr, and she still didn’t know what she was. She wondered if she was ever going to find out, or better, if she was ever going to care. There were other lives on the line.

He passed her a flask. She took it, slipping it under her mask for a few sips of water. It had been boiled to hell and back, but it was still liquid, and that was all that mattered. The rattling underneath the building abruptly stopped.

She lowered the flask. And then, amazingly, a small child walked out, one who couldn’t have been any older than twelve. Just enough to be a baby when the accident had happened and condemned them all. The child looked around, scanning the horizon, and then confidently walked forward, as if they knew where they needed to be.

“Let me handle it,” her partner said, reaching to turn on his mount’s motor. “You go up there, you’ll terrify them.”

“Says the guy who breathes fire,” she muttered, and she stuffed the flask into her pocket, zipping it up before turning on her own motor. The child looked up, and she could see the glint of safety glasses. And then they bolted, back down whatever hole they’d climbed out of. Violate reared her mount, and it chugged on faithfully forward, sliding down the remains of the overpass and making its way over to the hole.

Frankly, for as close as it was, it shouldn’t have taken over fifteen minutes to get there. Jumping over things wasn’t an option, not with how shaky everything was held together. Her partner stayed just behind her, watching for any dangers. They stopped at the entrance of the hole. It wasn’t wide - honestly, it looked about as big as a manhole cover, with the glint of a sewer’s ladder leading down into the darkness. Violate guided her mount a bit to the side, pushing just underneath a bit of overhanging metal, and turned off the ignition. She beckoned her partner forward.

He parked his mount beside her, slipping the key to the engine somewhere deep inside his jacket. They approached the entrance again, kneeling down to see if they could get in. If a twelve-year-old could, so could they.

Violate pushed the chunk of rock off the entrance, peering down into the darkness. She shifted her gas mask over her face, so she could be clearly heard. “Hello?” she called.

Her partner grabbed her by the back of her scarf and yanked her back, his tail sweeping over to stay between her and the tunnel. Two gunshots rang out from underneath them, the bullets vanishing above them. It was a warning, nothing more. Had either of them had their face over the hole, they’d be dead. 

But ravagers didn’t answer a call with two gunshots, they answered with an ambush. These were people, and people trying to keep themselves safe. She moved closer to the entrance, keeping herself from leaning over.

“I am Violate of the mercenaries,” she called, hoping to be loud enough to be heard by whoever was down there. “I am with Mavros, also of the mercenaries. We are not armed. May we come down?” They were armed, lethally so, but it was the sentiment of not killing anyone that actually mattered, and they didn’t intend on that.

She was met with silence, and then after a moment, a voice rang up to answer her. “Come down if you’re coming, but if you’re hostile, we’ll shoot your face off before you can draw a weapon!”

She glanced at her partner. He gave a thumbs-up, and if he was smiling, she couldn’t see it. “We’re coming,” she called back, and climbed over to the hole, and started down the ladder.

Unsurprisingly, it looked like it had once been part of someone’s fire escape, a long, long time ago. Most of the Underground was held together by ruins and scavenged, hastily-made scaffolding. It made for something surprisingly stable, especially after a decade. Violate lead the way, until they finally came to a landing made of woven, welded metal scaffolding, and a person. The man wasn’t nearly as geared up as she expected: a ski jacket and scarf wrapped around his face, safety glasses, and worn pants. He also had a longbow, the arrow made of metal, and he was pointing it at her face. 

She stepped forward, both hands raised, to allow her partner to land safely on the landing. She couldn’t see more than a few feet into the darkness, the only light being the one strapped to the archer’s forehead, like a miner’s headband. 

“We’re not here to be hostile, so you can drop the arrow if you’d prefer,” she said. “We’re mercenaries.”

“You said that,” he answered. She noted movement behind him. Sure enough, there was the child. “I know them as soldiers for hire, so forgive me if I don’t trust you.”

Her partner stepped forward, his eyes wide. Violate could almost feel the surprise coming off of him in waves. The archer turned his bow towards him. “Sisyphus?” her partner asked. “Is that really you?”

The archer - Sisyphus, she was sure - didn’t lower his bow. “Come along, then,” he said grudgingly instead, and walked them down the hallway they had found, or perhaps carved out from the ruins. He kept his eyes on them at all times.

She could smell the greenery before she saw it, but light came up ahead, and not a moment later, they stepped into a room with a blackboard at one end. It might’ve been a classroom, once. One wall was lined almost entirely with racks of plants, another with spare metal parts and tools, and below that table was what looked to be a sleeping bag.

“It’s safe to breathe down here, so drop the masks,” the archer said. The child behind him bolted, vanishing through the doorway. She watched them go, and then slowly, after weeks of not doing so, unclasped her gas mask and allowed it to fall around her neck. She pulled back her hood, and pushed her goggles up to her forehead.

Her partner did the same, and only then did the archer lower his bow, and drop it on the table beside him. “Hello, Mavros,” he said wearily, and pulled back his scarf, dropping his safety glasses on the table beside his bow. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

Her partner Mavros sighed, and ran a gloved hand through deep indigo hair. “You too, Sisyphus. Was that Atla we saw just now?”

Violate glanced between them. “You two know each other?” she asked. Sisyphus nodded, and then smiled.

“If you two really aren’t here to kill us or be hostile, the least we can do is swap news and see if we can’t spare some bedding for the night.” He gestured to the doorway. “But I should say it, to make it official. Welcome to Sanctuary.”

Sisyphus lead them through their little hideout with the ease of someone who had built it with his own two hands: he gestured to hallways and explained what was down them, noted what they had and how many people. She saw two more children besides that first one, who she supposed was Atla. She had the honour of explaining what mercenaries did nowadays: none of them were soldiers, except when beating off ravagers. They ran supplies from one settlement to the next, keeping tabs on everyone and keeping people alive, rescuing them and relocating them to where everyone was likely to survive.

She offered to add Sanctuary to their map, and pass along the information to the other mercenaries. It would guarantee checkups on them, and would keep them in contact with other survivors. Sisyphus said he’d have to talk to the others before coming to an agreement, but it sounded like a good enough deal to him. 

She was also able to confirm the destruction of both the Garuda and Aries factions of ravagers. Sisyphus met her eye unflinching, and there was steel in his tone when he said, “Good,” like he knew more than he was letting on. She almost didn’t care. Let the world have their secrets, so long as they didn’t backstab her. Mavros wasn’t in the mood to backstab her either, but he did seem to know Sisyphus, which meant she’d have to interrogate the both of them later.

“We have food, but there’s not as much as we’d like,” Sisyphus said, leading them down a hallway that was crowded with supplies, some valuable, some not. “We still don’t know if some of the meat we’ve got is edible.”

“What did it come from, and how long ago?” Mavros asked. “Couple of the beasts we’ve encountered are poisonous, and a few actually make pretty good meals.”

He glanced over, fingers tracing the wall to guide him, his eyes foggy. “We had a run in with these… monstrosities, earlier. They were like dogs, but… spidery, almost? Dogs with eight legs and a spider build.”

“Ah, retrievers,” Violate commented. “They’re edible, but don’t touch the back end, that’ll kill you. I don’t know how, but they can be tamed. One of the other cultivator settlements managed it, and now they just need as many weavers as we can find, because they’re making retriever silk and selling it for food. We’ve got some of their supply with us.”

“Really? Tokusa can sew, I’ll get him to look at this silk of yours and see if we could use it.” He lead them down a few more hallways and down a staircase, until they came to what looked more like a common area. Attached to it seemed to be a sleeping area. The walls were mostly metal scaffolds and crumbling piles of cement held in place with chain-link. From here, she could get a good look at some of the kids: the purple-haired kid from before, who held themself against a surly, brown-haired satyr of a thing; a pale, black-haired goat-girl; and even hidden in the corner, a girl who looked to be halfway made of a rosebush.

She blinked. Proper plant-folk were _rare_ , and valuable to the ravagers. If the rumours were true - and they were always true - plant-folk were bartered and used as the closest thing anyone could get to agriculture. They could grow food from the parts of their bodies that were no longer flesh and blood, and often, that was all they were. This young girl had the shadows in her eyes of someone who’d brushed up against that fate far too early. 

There were three other adults in the room, and one teenager. Sisyphus gestured to them. “I called everyone,” he said. “Folks, this is Violate and Mavros, they’re travellers. They have supplies and contact with… pretty much everyone else who’s still alive.”

The rose-girl looked at him, daring to interrupt. “Are they ravagers?”

Mavros smiled, kneeling down at her. “No,” he said, softly. “But if it’s comforting, we did get news a few days ago that the Aries and Garuda factions are gone. They went boom, so you never have to worry about them again.”

Violate shifted uncomfortably, scanning the room. Most of the occupants had their eyes on Mavros, and at least two of their number had eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I’m Violate,” she said, calling attention back to herself. “I’m some sort of hellbeast, damned if I know past that. Mavros is a dragon.”

They relaxed. Sisyphus dipped his head. “Well, you know me. Sisyphus, falcon, current leader and guardian of Sanctuary.” He gestured to the three adults, who shifted forward.

The eldest of them - a short man with far too many wrinkles and short brown hair and grey fish-scales - slid off the table to hold out his hand to shake. Violate took it. “Krest,” he said. “Barracuda, I think. Used to be a fisherman before the waters were poisoned. What were you up to?”

She looked away. “I was a tenured professor at Coq-U. We went into lockdown, and the students rebelled against us. I was the only one to get out alive.” 

Krest paused, and nodded in understanding. “Ravagers?” he asked, pushing a little more. 

“They’re dead now, thanks to the Scorpions,” she answered, and glanced at the other two. The topic wasn’t one she wanted to talk about. A lot of them had been good young adults. Viciousness got the best of them all, and she’d watched one of her favourite sophomores slaughter several of her coworkers to claim dominance that he felt he deserved. It was almost something other than a tragedy that he’d died in the fighting against the Scorpions. “And what about you two?”

“I’m Yuzuriha, and this is my brother, Tokusa. Birds, we think,” said the elder of the two - Yuzuriha, who looked no more than maybe twenty-five. They both had short blond hair and soft features, the pale blue feathers sprouting from their jawlines and necks. Neither had wings. 

“Look like some sort of crane to me,” she commented, and dipped her head. Tokusa offered her a small smile.

“The kids are Sasha, Yato, Mine Junior, and Agasha,” Tokusa said, gesturing to them. Mavros had been speaking to Agasha, halfway a rose bush and probably the kind that bit you if you got too close. “Sasha’s our only healer, we think Yato’s a rhinoceros, Mine Junior’s a mountain goat, and Agasha’s a rose.”

Sasha - who looked perfectly normal and unscathed by the radioactive mutations of everyone around her - offered a small smile. Mavros shuffled around in his pockets, raising his eyebrows once at Violate before producing a pack of sealed candy. The four children pounced on it, and he rose from his spot, smiling. 

Sisyphus looked impressed. He shrugged. “Movie theatre on 47th and Scott,” Mavros answered in return of the unspoken question. “Mostly already looted, honestly we were just hoping for projector parts in case we found someone’s movies. Turned out some of the poor folks there had a candy stash nobody found, and most of it was still good, and we found two working projectors.”

Violate took up the thread. “We took what we found back to Heinstein Manor - which survived pretty okay - and got everything set up, and it turns out most everything Pandora had in her basement survived, and one thing lead to another, and that’s how we started the Mercenary Guilds. Mavros and Pandora generally lead, but it’s a matter of getting all the survivors in contact with one another. See what we can rebuild from all this.”

Sisyphus nodded, glancing at Krest, Yuzuriha, Tokusa, and the kids. “We have some seeds that I think we could trade, since you said you had fabric. We can’t really move out on the road, the only reason the Deathqueen ravagers haven’t slaughtered us yet is because this area’s all sealed off, but… It would be nice, to have slightly better chances of survival.”

Mavros stared him down. “You know where the Deathqueen ravagers are?” he asked, his voice tight. They’d had a few run-ins with them on the road, but never anything good enough to know where they were primarily active. They had a bloody reputation, from what Violate had seen. Mavros knew more, but he wouldn’t talk about them.

Sisyphus nodded. “Two days’ thataway on foot,” he answered, gesturing in a direction to her left. There was nothing out that way, so far as she knew. “Around where Broadway and Greensdale used to be, if I’m not wrong. We hear it every time they pass us by, and we’re lucky they haven’t found us.”

Mavros glanced in her direction, a light in his eyes she was unfortunately too familiar with. “Scorpions aren’t far from that,” he said, and she knew where he was going with that sentence before he even finished it.

“We are not siccing two ravager factions on each other and hoping they wipe each other out, Mavros. We don’t know how many of them actually want to be there. We’re better than slaughtering more people.” Her voice was blunt and firm. They’d had the argument around ravagers more times than she cared to count. Mavros still didn’t know. She didn’t know how she’d ever tell him and look him in the eye again. 

Sisyphus smiled, warily so. “Still the same as ever, I see,” he replied, dipping his head in Mavros’ direction. “How about we treat you to dinner, see what you two have for barter, swap information, and tomorrow morning we send you on your way.”

Violate nodded. “Sounds good to me.” She felt a small tug at her pant leg and looked down, to see Agasha the rose-girl looking up at her with wide, pollen-coloured eyes. “Yes?”

“When the accident happened…” she began, and her voice was quiet, hesitant, sorrowful. “I was with a boy. My next-door neighbour. His family died and mine did too, and we found Sisyphus and everyone, and we lost him fighting beasts. Do you know if he’s okay?”

She offered the girl a small smile. This was going to happen eventually - every new settlement they found, people wanted to know if anyone else had survived. They’d started a list of everyone they knew of, and while the list itself was at Heinstein, she’d memorized most of it. She didn’t take names down of people that hadn’t been seen since before the accident, but if there were any survivors since then, well. If she’d learned anything, it was that when faced with apocalypse, folks would do things they’d never have dreamed themselves capable of in order to survive. “There’s a few people I know of, but I need more of a description than that to know if I’ve seen him.”

Tokusa spoke up. “She means Albafica. He’s a fish of some sort. About twenty-two, blue hair, kind of feral but didn’t know when to quit. We ran into a pack of beasts and he told us he’d buy us time. If he’s alive, I want to know about it. He saved us all, doing that.”

She glanced at Mavros, who shrugged in universal ‘ _Not a clue_ ’. “I haven’t heard of anyone that fits that description, no. But I’ll keep an eye out. How long ago was this?”

“Two years.”

She took in a breath. By the sounds of it, he’d been on his own for a while. “Again, I’ll keep an eye out. I’ll be honest, the odds aren’t in his favour. But I’ll spread the word, and when we find out what happened to him, we’ll make sure Sanctuary’s the first to know.”

Sisyphus stepped forward and wrapped them both in a hug. “You’ve both been a great help so far. I’m… really grateful for it all.”

Krest pulled them apart, a smile on his face that meant something, though she wasn’t sure what. He eyed Sisyphus. “How about I start up with dinner and show Violate what we’ve got, and you show Mavros the arms closet.”

Mavros gave him a confused look. “Sisyphus showed us the arms closet already? I can help with dinner.”

Krest returned the look with a meaningful expression. Sisyphus, all of a sudden, went very red in the face, the feathers in his grayish-blond hair rising stick-straight. Violate folded her arms, groaned, and glared at every adult in the room.

“I hate every single one of you, equally and with extreme prejudice,” she announced. Mavros huffed, snorting smoke out of his nostrils, but surprisingly still pale in the face, unlike Sisyphus who looked like he was attempting to will himself out of existence. “Please, Yuzuriha, Tokusa. Show me where dinner gets prepared.”

Tokusa started to laugh, and left the room, beckoning her to follow.

Violate was yelling, and the alarms were going off, and the windows had shattered, leaving broken glass across the floors. She shoved Aiacos out of the doorway, into the hall, shoving Fyodor on top of him. “Get to the panic room, now, _go_!” she screamed, throwing two more students into the hallway. Once they were all out and relatively moving, she snatched the emergency kit from the wall and herded them forward. They moved fairly quickly once they realized everyone was freaking out too.

She saw two students snatch hands and hold them up. Manigoldo, the loudest in the class, held up Pharaoh's hand so everyone could see. “Buddy system, folks! Nobody’s left behind!” he yelled, and he was audible over the alarms. A hand grasped hers and dragged her forward, using the fact that she was taller than most of her students to force them to actually move.

Sylphide’s class wasn’t far behind, pushing her forward, a few students darting from behind her in hopes of getting to the front. Anything to keep themselves alive.

The panic room was buried below the basement of the main campus, away from the tunnels and some thirty feet underground. It was mainly in the case of a tsunami, but it would do okay in the earthquakes department. She shoved the last of her students in, releasing her buddy’s hand and closing the door to a crack.

Sylphide stood on a chair and took roll call. There were no alarms here, but she could still hear them ringing through. Surprisingly, everyone was present. Everyone was safe. She closed the door and locked it, four ways of different commands. They were manual locks, thank God, in case of power failure. But if the lights went out, they’d be in pitch darkness.

The students waited until roll call had been taken to start panicking. One of them cracked open their laptop, setting it up on a chair. Sylphide had cautioned them against using the outlets until it was over, in hopes they wouldn’t fry their laptop.

And they watched the live broadcast, staring at the screen. Some of the students had started crying. The damage was already extensive. She didn’t know how high the death toll would be, but nothing in the immediate area that hadn’t gotten to safety was going to survive that.

But when it came down it, ‘safety’ was relative, and she didn’t think the panic room was built for nuclear failure. So very little was. On the screen, she watched her own neighbourhood go down in flames, and proceed to get crushed by the nearby condominiums. She watched in mute horror. Nothing was going to be left, after that. 

A hand slipped into hers and squeezed. She turned, blinking, at one of her students. Aiacos. He was quiet, liked to laugh, was never seen studying but asked the most intricate questions she’d heard in years. “We’re all going to die,” he said quietly, matter-of-fact. “Nothing’s going to be left, by the time it’s done.”

“We’ll see,” she said, softly. “Don’t underestimate humanity. Have some faith in us.”

She woke up with a start, laughter ringing in her ears. She glanced around, blinking away her exhaustion, shifting onto one hip, shaking out one of her hooves. At least she wasn’t shedding. There was a lamp in one corner, burning off oil that they must’ve found somewhere. Mavros was unconscious a few feet away from her, Sisyphus on his other side. And around the room, she took a quick head-count, and everyone was there. Even Agasha, whose roses had turned back to buds in her sleep.

She pulled her knees up to her chin, resting her ankles on the bottom of her sleeping bag, hooves in the air. How she wished she’d been able to do more. That she could have stopped it.

The only things she could hear were the soft snores of those around her. She scanned the room, and this time, Mine Junior’s eyes were open.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked softly, trying to smile at her, ignoring Aiacos’ manic laughter in her ears. That laugh - and the slaughter she hadn’t been able to stop - would be ringing in her ears for a long, long time. But she’d seen those eyes before, and that chin. But she couldn’t place where from.

“You said you were from Coq-U,” the child said, her voice firm in an accusation. “So you were there.” She blinked. Mine Junior had to be no more than twelve - how could she have remembered that far back? The child continued. “You were there. You knew what they became.”

Why did kids have to be like that? Couldn’t hide a damn thing from them, and on more than one occasion her coworkers had asked why she’d never wanted any. There were other reasons, but her inability to handle them properly was a major one. “I saw the students become ravagers, yes,” she admitted grudgingly.

“Uncle Sisyphus won’t tell me where my dad is. But you’d know, wouldn’t you? He’s still with them.” Mine Junior’s voice was full of resentment. More so than the other preteens she’d met over the course of her life. She didn’t have to ask who _they_ were. 

“Who’s your dad?” she asked, softly. Chances are, Mine Junior was right. She’d never heard of anyone escaping the ravagers alive.

“His name is Elcid,” Mine Junior answered, and she didn’t need to say anything more. Violate’s eyes widened. She remembered him. He had been a grad student, trying to improve on fusion technology. Quiet and reserved. Emphasis on the ‘had’ - he’d become a goat-man and slipped into the ranks of the growing ravager faction Aiacos was building, becoming a brutal, bloodthirsty second-in-command. She’d watched him kill four of her coworkers personally with his bare hands.

Now that she thought about it, yes, he’d had a daughter. She’d gotten out before he did, and hadn’t realized that maybe he had, too. It seemed impossible, and yet… “How did you end up here, Mine?” she asked, softly.

“Uncle Sisyphus kidnapped me with his best friend in all the world, when they decided to stop being ravagers together,” she answered. “They didn’t call him Mavros, back then.”

She stared. It was impossible. It also answered so many questions she’d never had the bravery to ask.

Above her head, she could hear the movement of vehicles, and the distant, far-too-clear sound of engine throttle. And she knew that sound better than she wanted to admit.

She moved. “Everyone! Up! Now!” she shouted, slamming her hoof into the ground. Mavros was the first to get on his feet, followed a split second later by Sisyphus.

“What’s wrong, Vio?” he demanded blearily, smoke seeping from his nose with every breath.

“Deathqueen ravagers, right above us,” she snapped. “Get your weapons, Mavros. I don’t want to get sieged unawares.”

He spun out of the room and ran. Sisyphus snatched his bow from the place where he’d propped it against the wall, feathers upright and alert. He shoved his gas mask over his face, strapping it down with a panicked frenzy.

Agasha stepped to beside Mine Junior, the roses embedded in her flesh curling inward, the thorns of her enlarging to nearly thrice their size. 

Mavros slid back into the room, light on his scaled feet, a frankly impressive, military-grade gun in his hands. “Don’t shoot unless you know you can kill with one shot,” he snapped. “And don’t shoot if I can cook it alive first. We don’t have ammo to waste.”

“Right,” she answered, and caught the gun as he tossed it to her. She grimly followed him out, listening for the sound of the engines, hoping for the best. She knew better than that, to hope. At the moment, she didn’t care. Hoping was sometimes all one had.


End file.
